What is the impact of the citizen journalism movement?

Citizen journalism sites like OhmyNews, NewAssignment.net, and Ourmedia.org are changing the face of the media by allowing citizens, rather than large news agencies, to do the reporting. Yet news sites are only part of the story: tools like blogging and wikis are also forms of citizen journalism.

Learn more about this rapidly growing phenomenon in TechSoup's article Citizen Journalism Movement Gives More Power to the People, and see how your nonprofit can use it to empower your constituents.

What do you think the impact of the citizen journalism movement will be? Share your thoughts and questions here.

I think citizen journalism is immersing people voice of future, it not only provide power to people but it stabilize democracy. A good article I read today on all about citizen journalism at http://www.merinews.com/citizen_journalism.jsp

If anyone is interested in the topic of citizen journalism and online reporting, you may wish to check out Frontline's latest series, News War. The third installment, "News War: What's Happening to the News," which airs February 27, addresses issues pertinent to online activists and writers. Here is PBS's synopsis:

"The third part of News War puts viewers on the front lines of an epic battle over the future of news. America's major network news divisions and daily newspapers are under siege, facing mounting pressure for profits from corporate owners, and growing challenges from cable television and the Internet, which are remaking the economics of the business and transforming the very definition of news. FRONTLINE talks to network executives, journalists, Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and key players at Google and Yahoo! who are all battling for survival and market dominance in a rapidly changing world of news. FRONTLINE also goes inside the embattled newsroom of The Los Angeles Times, one of the last remaining papers in the country still covering major national stories. Under severe pressure from Wall Street to cut costs and to compete for "eyeballs" in a new media world, editors at the paper are urgently trying to figure out what this means for their future news coverage and their public service mission."

We recently completed a project for a citizen journalism project in Chicago (www.creatingcommunityconnections.org).

At CivicSpace we think the real potential is to create these micro/neighborhood-level online communities. In our interviews with users, it became apparent that what nonprofits really want is some dynamic content for their website and an easy local resource to post news and events and such.